springtime bloom
by tunnelOFdawn
Summary: When Takashi dies, he dies young, like his grandmother and his parents. He is eighteen years old and newly graduated from high school. He takes a year off before going to college. He loves his home far too much to abandon it so easily. When Takashi dies, he comes home. The yōkai no longer speak about Natsume Reiko.
1. springtime bloom

When Takashi dies, he dies young, like his grandmother and his parents. He is eighteen years old and newly graduated from high school. He takes a year off before going to college. He loves his home far too much to abandon it so easily.

The world stretches out in front of him—endless horizons. He has dreams; he has aspirations. They spill forth from his slender form like water breaking through a dam. The force of them overwhelm him in a heady joy.

"I want to be a social worker," Takashi says.

Touko smiles with creased eyes.

"Ah, Takashi," Shigeru exhales. There is a look that can only be described as pride—a pride so fierce that it warms Takashi up from head to toe. It is a hot bath loosening muscles and summoning slumber.

Takashi is kind, his closest family and friends agree.

* * *

When Takashi dies, he comes home.

"Where else would I go?" Takashi laughs softly. His laugh is different. It is wind chimes in a howling wind.

He is no ghost ready to haunt the living world. Godhood becomes him. When they ask him god of what, he says, "I am the god of the springtime bloom." There is something foreign in his voice. It is ever so slightly off, as if it isn't only Takashi speaking.

* * *

Takashi dies in spring with a crown of wildflowers. It's almost funny the way he dies—gruesomely funny. It's the sort of death that lends a wry tone to a smile.

The midranks lead Takashi and Madara through the forest. A celebration, they cry. It is finally spring. The flowers are in full riotous bloom and the trees are resplendent in a leafy green. Birdsong and burbling brooks accompany their travel. It is such a picturesque scene that Takashi can scarce believe it. He never would have dreamed of such peace in the days _before_.

They go deeper into the forest. Laughter echoes between them, fed by their joyous contributions. Smiles adorn their faces—wide and narrow, alike. Vitality renders their forms in a sharp focus and a glow that smothers the darkness.

A dead tree branch falls with all the sound of thunder and all the fury of lightning bisecting the firmament. Had it been thin and near the ground, the branch would have been of no import. Yet, that is not that story—a story where Takashi experiences another near-death and gets scolded by Nyanko-sensei for carelessness. A story where Takashi returns home to family and friends. A story where he learns the moral of appreciating his life and living day by day in recognition of that lesson. This is not that story. He does not live another day. It would be disingenuous to imply otherwise.

Takashi dies.

In the sunlight, there is a curious sheen to the blood pooling around his head. The yōkai notice. Hope coalesces. The humans do not notice. Grief overwhelms.

When they burn his body, it is then, and only then, that his spirit loosens its moors and breaks free of that mortal shell. He does not dissipate into that nebulous realm of the dead. His form has all the consistency of a yōkai—strangely tangible but with a lightness that defies gravity and time.

A wreath of wildflowers crown his head in impossible colors. They shimmer iridescent in the sunlight. There is a depth to them lacking in mortal flowers. Similarly, his clothing is a raucous burst of color that beguiles the eye. He wears an old-fashioned kimono, heavy with crimson brocade and adorned with gilded embroidery. Chrysanthemums and peonies intertwine in a seamless ease that ought to look gauche but verges into a fantastical beauty.

Takashi does not look human.

His feet are bare and sink into the earth. It yields under his feet. With every step he takes, flowers bloom in profusion. Existing flora lean in towards him. Vines climb up his legs in a grasp that is both choking and comforting.

* * *

 _Knock-knock_ goes a fist on a door.

"Are you Natsume Takashi's guardian?" an officer queries. He has an expression of reluctance on his lined face. His shoulders hunch inward. Those dark eyes of his linger everywhere but for Touko's eyes. They are too warm, he thinks. He watches her smile, polite but sincere. He does not want to watch that smile and the light in her eyes disappear.

"Yes, I am," Touko confirms.

"May I come in?" he says, hat in hand.

Touko ushers him in. Introductions are made though later she will recall nothing. They have tea. They sit down together in silence. There is something wrong, she knows. And who else is so familiar with trouble that it hangs off him if not her son?

"Where is my son?" Touko asks. Her voice quivers, as if she were glass balancing on an edge—see-sawing in an uncertainty of existence. Her breaths echo loudly in the room in a staccato rhythm. She clutches her handmade teacup. It should crack, she thinks. It should. (Why won't it, she almost thinks with a hysteria that would unbalance her.) The force in her hands is an unfamiliarity that she cannot control.

"Please calm down," the officer murmurs.

"I am calm," Touko says. The officer's statement incites anything but calmness. Why won't he speak? Why won't he tell where her son is? Why does he hesitate?

"Your son," he begins…

There is a point when emotions overwhelm a person such that the emotions no longer affect a person. A haze overcomes Touko. She can scarcely remember the contents of the conversation except the most vital point of all—that of her son's death.

Schoolchildren wandered around in the forest and stumbled upon a cooling corpse. A pudgy cat was perched on the boy. He pawed desperately at the boy, as if confused by the lack of movement. He meowed. He purred. He _wailed_.

Nyankichi-kun never comes home. It is another devastation that makes havoc of Touko's and Shigeru's carefully tended grief.

* * *

"Sensei," Natsume says faintly, "what happened?" He stares down at his hands. They do not feel like hands. There is a delay between thought and action. His body is not right. His movements are sluggish, like walking through water, as he examines himself.

Madara is quiet for a long moment. "Took you long enough," he croaks out eventually. He swipes at Takashi with an uncharacteristically vicious paw. Usually, it's a light swipe meant to chide. It's usually all bluster. But today is not usually. It is an anger that Madara cannot help but express. He wants to say, I sat on your cooling corpse for too long. I watched you die in a pool of your own blood.

"Long enough?" Takashi repeats. The words are heavy in his mouth. The contortions his tongue takes are unfamiliar to him. It's a reflexive action but there is a hesitation he cannot quell. As if this mouth of his is not his at all.

"You're dead, you idiot," Madara hisses. His body arches up and he flashes sharp teeth. Stupid boy had gone and died on him. Stupid boy died so easily. A tree branch of all things felled Takashi as easily as the saw does lumber.

"I'm not dead," Takashi laughs. Dizziness sweeps over him, shunting his earlier thoughts aside. He is alive. He has a body. He is flesh and blood. Is there anything more alive than that?

"Fool," Madara says, "look at yourself."

* * *

"I am here! Don't cry, Touko-san!" Takashi pleads. His hands yearn to make contact. They pass through Touko. Her cries pause with a shudder and resume with as much alacrity as before.

Madara watches. There is something in his chest that squeezes tighter and tighter with every second that passes by. Yōkai do not endure grief—they become grief. Humans are not meant to become yōkai. Takashi's blood does him no good.

"Boy," Madara sighs (now he'll always be a boy), "you don't have enough power to manifest."

"And when will I?" Takashi says, high and wavering.

"Wait a few years," Madara croaks. He licks at his paw and grooms himself with a cultivated air of disinterest. Takashi can feel the insincerity in the gesture. They've known each other for so long. Yet, the familiarity is no balm on his soul when he cannot touch or talk to Touko.

"That's…too long," Takashi whispers. He cannot abide by the thought of no contact. However, do Touko-san and Shigeru-san truly want a specter to hover in their lives? He had seen Touko's flinch. Yōkai were not meant for humans. It never ends well. He had seen proof enough of that.

Takashi loves his family too much to cause them pain.

* * *

"I haven't eaten in so long," Takashi realizes. How odd to have forgotten such a vital need. He barely remembers his old body. This new form of his does not hunger and does not thirst. There are no random pains that fade quickly. He does not bruise easily. He does not cut easily. The heat does not affect him. The cold does not affect him. In fact, a lot of things do not easily affect his body. He is static. Takashi had never realized how dynamic humans are in comparison to yōkai.

* * *

There is a shrine set up for Takashi. It's a memorial for his mortal life but truly, it becomes a yōkai's shrine. There is power in remembrance—a remembrance that becomes belief. They think, surely, he isn't really dead. Denial fosters hope. Intellectually, they know he is dead but in their heart of hearts, they know that there was always something _off_ about Takashi. It makes death seem disconnected from a person like him. As if they were on parallel paths.

Flowers bloom until they rot on his shrine. They creep up and shimmy their way in an inexorable push for conquest. They grow in and out of season in a riot of color. It baffles the townspeople. Sometimes, out of the corners of their eyes, they can _see_ plants bloom and rot in an accelerated pace. The cycle repeats.

When springtime rolls around again, his shrine experiences more traffic—both human and yōkai. They do not know why they continue to return. It is an imperative deeply cultivated within them that blooms in the springtime. A primal directive unfurls.

"I feel so warm," Takashi begins to say as each day passes. He clutches at his chest. His muscles loosen in that warm glow. He sprawls out on the earth with his arms and legs akimbo. The earth reaches back—sucking him in. Roots capture his ankles in an embrace that Takashi cannot help but bask in. There is power in this—of the earth freely given.

Madara watches, even as every fiber in his being aches to move.

* * *

"Your garden is blooming very well this year, Touko."

"Yes…yes, it is."

* * *

"Sometimes," Tanuma murmurs, "I think he's still alive. I turn around but no one's there." He leans against Taki. Their spines curve into the grooves of the tree.

Taki dips her head down and scuffs a foot against the dirt. Her legs extend fully. "Sometimes," she mimics, "I set up circles. It's silly. As if that one day Natsume will step into it and I could see him again." She pauses with a wry smile. "As if he ended up a yōkai. I know that's not how it works."

* * *

"We taught him how to ride a bike. It's dumb. But that's all I can think about."

"And…n-now he'll never ride a bike ever again."

"He'll never do a lot of things now."

* * *

"Reiko's line dies young," a group of middle-aged women whisper. It is an ineffective form of subtlety. Their whispers are harsh and audible, like wind rushing through trees.

Touko smiles tightly when they give their condolences. Their words rust over the steel of her heart. She wants to sand away the impurity of their words. She cannot bear the thought of their narrow minds constraining Natsume Takashi's existence to a single comment. As if he was not a boy with endless potential and a kindness that those old biddies lack. As if he was not _her_ boy.

She is too polite to chastise them but oh, how she _burns_. They can tell. They leave with uneasy smiles. A bitter part of her thinks, _Good riddance._ She is not accustomed to bitterness but grief does strange things to a woman.

Shigeru does not burn—he wilts. He goes through the motions like a puppet with too much slack. Work is performed by rote memory. He takes the train home. He cannot fathom driving in his condition. The sharp lens of focus and attention turns hazy into a blurriness that he cannot blink away. The world is a bad dream from which he cannot wake.

"Where is my son?" Shigeru asks. It is a nightly question. When he is alone, the enormity of his loss strikes him and robs the breath out of his chest.

"Takashi," he savors.

Secretly, guiltily, he whispers, "Fujiwara Takashi." They had never wanted to cut Takashi's ties with his parents and so had never approached the idea of a name change. They were content with what Takashi freely gave them. But now, that lack of a family name pains him.

Shigeru looks at the clay cups in the cabinet. Smashing them would be so easy. His hand reaches out.

* * *

Fujiwara Touko and Fujiwara Shigeru keep Natsume Takashi's room pristine. Not a thing out of place. An unmade futon still lingers. A drawer not fully pushed in juts out. Pictures embedded into a cork board. Paper and writing utensils organized neatly on a desk.

When they come in to dust off, they sweep away cherry blossom petals every month. They watch curtains flutter in a breeze from an unopened window. Touko and Shigeru are vaguely aware that there is more to life than they perceive. Touko remembers crows; Shigeru remembers Natsume Reiko. It is a cold comfort when they cannot hug Takashi nor speak to him. If it is him that lingers, it is a painful realization. Their boy, so close, yet so far. How terribly sad he must be. Their boy, with golden eyes.

* * *

Takashi watches Taki set up the circle. He takes a step forward. Madara, in his greater form, plucks him up by the nape of his neck. He holds him gently in his maw. He gives a little shake, like remonstrating a pet for bad behavior.

Madara retreats into the forest with Takashi. Takashi protests the entire way, reluctant to use the full force of fledgling powers to fight.

With a huff, Madara sets Takashi down. He folds himself and sets his head on his paws. "What a cruel boy you are, Takashi," Madara intones. His voice rumbles the earth. It makes no difference. The earth supports Takashi. He stands still with clenched fists.

"Me, cruel? When you took me away from Taki?" Takashi says incredulously.

"You're not thinking straight, you idiot. Would you condemn your friends and family to a half-life? You cannot live in a circle forever and nor can they live tethered to your circle. Why would you tempt them with what you cannot give? All you would be doing is abandoning them again.

"Takashi, you won't be able to manifest for years. Taki's circle isn't sustainable. What's more is that she'll get caught eventually. Exorcists are cautious and sometimes for good reason."

Madara often likes to play the fool—an indolent, insolent cat out for himself and sake. But Madara has not lived so long by being a fool. ("Boy," Takashi remembers Madara saying, "I was old long before your country even existed and I will exist long after it dies.")

Takashi loves his friends too much to cause them pain.

* * *

"It was just bad timing," Natori grimaces. "Nature can be just as deadly as yōkai, Matoba."

"I still think that more questioning of that fat cat wouldn't be amiss," Matoba says smoothly. He flicks a glance at Madara prowling outside the Fujiwaras' front door.

"Don't be an idiot, Matoba. It's like there's nothing underneath all that hair," Natori mutters.

If Natsume were here, they would be in a world of hell for infringing upon his friends and family. He had always done his best to keep them safe and happy. He had never wanted his otherworldly excursions to bleed into his personal life. Natsume was a sweet kid who didn't deserve to die so young and from a tree branch of all things. His death is senseless.

* * *

The yōkai no longer speak about Natsume Reiko.

They speak of Natsume-sama, he of the springtime bloom. Listen close: benevolent god that he is, he will help you in all your troubles. You need only ask. But do not cross those under his protection. He is a god of nature and nature can be cruel. He will water your crops and drown you in your home. He will make your lands so fertile that they will choke the life out of you.

And you will feed his springtime bloom.

At times, Madara does not recognize the god before him. But the kindness—palpably Natsume Takashi—never goes away. It is only reinforced by a harshness that is a testament to his survival.

* * *

"I was old long before your family gained the sight and I will exist long after they die," the god whispers to the exorcist. Long golden hair sweeps against the exorcist's neck. The scent of cherry blossoms smothers him.

Vines climb and paralyze the exorcist. He struggles to no avail. For the first time in his life, he is scared. This is not a fight he will win. In fact, this is not at all a fight.

"I knew Matoba Seiji and Natori Shuuichi in their prime," the god hisses. "I knew them when they were young men unsure of themselves. I knew Natori Shuuichi and Matoba Seiji before they revitalized their clans. If they could not seal me, then what hope do you have hundreds of years later? You and your family are nothing. You walk in the shadows of giants and do not realize you are stumbling in the dark."

Matoba Seiji and Natori Shuuichi, the exorcist listens in awe. They were famous figures from the golden age of exorcism. They revitalized the dying world of the exorcists. Their skill had been balanced by their compassion.

Exorcist-yōkai fatalities had dropped significantly in their tenure. They had revolutionized the exorcist world by negotiating alliances with yōkai. Matoba Seiji even lost an eye—paying his family's long-standing debt in exchange for peace. No longer were exorcists considered faithless and feckless by yōkai. The word of an exorcist became as equally as binding as that of a yōkai.

"But I am a kind god. Do not return to my forest, to my town, to _my_ lands. Do not be foolish, little exorcist. Do not attack the weak. Do not attack the innocent. I will know," the god promises. He smiles.

When the god smiles, it is a sweet and shy smile. He looks more like a boy of eighteen years and less like a yōkai of hundreds of years. Those gold eyes of his are molten in the sunlight. Limned in the sun, he is a soft beauty that entices a person to let go of all of their pain and confide all of their secrets.

"I never enjoy hurting people," the god whispers. "Please…"

Vulnerability is a strangely compelling look on this god. The exorcist is enamored.

Another human falls in love with Natsume Takashi.

They cannot help themselves.


	2. midspring dream

**A/N: Not a direct sequel/chapter to springtime bloom but since FFN doesn't do series, I'm doing it as a chapter. Pairing: Taki/Tanuma/Natsume. Based on a prompt available in the end notes.**

* * *

"Sometimes," Tanuma murmurs, "I think he's still alive. I turn around but no one's there." He leans against Tooru. Their spines curve into the grooves of the tree.

Taki dips her head down and scuffs a foot against the dirt. Her legs extend fully. "Sometimes," she mimics, "I set up circles. It's silly. As if that one day Natsume will step into it and I could see him again." She pauses with a wry smile. "As if he ended up a yōkai. I know that's not how it works."

* * *

The days after Natsume Takashi's death is the purest manifestation of emptiness that Tanuma Kaname will ever experience, is experiencing, and has ever experienced. Grief hollows him out and replaces his heart with a chasm. The wind whistles through his chest cavity and howls of loss.

The springtime bloom loses all vitality in Kaname's eyes. The world is a desaturated caricature of reality. It is not real, he hopes. The cold arm of reality tightens around his chest and forces air out of his lungs. The enormity of his loss strikes him again and again. He cannot fathom the intensity of his grief ever dying down.

But his father says that he only needs time—time enough for grief to make its home and never leave. His father says that the grief becomes a part of you until you do not even notice it in the same way that you do not focus on moving a limb. Grief becomes instinct until even joy returns to fill that hollow cavity. Humanity is not meant to languish in only one emotion.

* * *

Ponta avoids them. Kaname catches glances of him in his peripheral. Inaudible grumbling always accompany these sightings. To whom does Ponta speak? He knows not. It does not matter. Takashi has always been the bridge between yōkai and humans. There is no interpreter here to indulge Kaname's queries.

Ponta continues to avoid them. Direct eye contact makes him flee. There is guilt in that ceramic facade. He grants a secret safe harbor, Kaname knows.

What do you hide, Ponta? Why do you avoid us so fiercely? Takashi's death was not your fault. Come home. The Fujiwaras miss their Nyangoro, their Nyankichi—their last tether to Takashi.

Kaname visits the Fujiwaras often with Tooru, and occasionally with Nishimura and Kitamoto. It is then and only then that Touko-san smiles. Sadness transmutes the previous comfort of her smile into a pitiable sight. She misses the liveliness of children. Her house is too empty and they can never fully fill in that gap.

* * *

It is a month after Takashi's death. Kaname lays supine in bed. A month, he marvels. How perverse that Takashi could be dead for so long and yet the world turns. The death of one person is a localized phenomenon.

Dark eyes flicker over to fluttering curtains. He had left his window open. The fresh night air is disturbed by a breeze. Moments later, a chilly warmth arises on the right side of his body. It's that burning feeling a person gets when they are so cold that even room temperature exposure is enough to set nerve endings wailing with an uncomfortable warmth. It is not a pleasant feeling.

The scent of cherry blossoms smothers Kaname. His skin prickles with gooseflesh. That overwhelming feeling is reminiscent of his yōkai encounters. Could it be that a yōkai lays with him in bed? He cringes away but that chilly warmth follows.

Night after night, that chilly warmth plasters itself to Kaname's side. His cringing and fleeing gradually turns into acceptance. He starts to think of how nice it is to no longer be alone. In the daytime, there is an empty space next to him that renders him so alone that even Tooru's company is no comfort at all. If Takashi were still here, then he would likely be scolding Kaname, so overwhelmed with worry. But the world does not run on if-then statements, only certainties and Takashi's death is a certainty.

* * *

At night, Kaname dreams of simpler times. Going to class with a group of friends and participating in school events. Despairing over exams and homework in tandem. Adventuring together. Going fishing. Going biking. Eating together. Never being alone. Spending hours upon hours together.

He dreams of Natsume Takashi with all his troubles and reticence.

* * *

It's been a year since Takashi's death and 11 months since that chilly warmth has appeared in Kaname's bed. Against all common sense, he speaks to it nightly, even in the new location of his university dorm. He's studying accounting. It's a stable job and his father is growing old. What a pious son, relatives approve. Kaname has always believed in duty and responsibility to family and friends. He wonders for what duty does this yōkai linger for.

"I wonder why you've stuck around for so long. I don't even have the sight, not like Takashi did."

The curtains flutter in an unseen breeze.

"How bored you must be to watch me every night."

A furious gust of wind scatters papers from his desk.

* * *

Telling Tooru about his yōkai situation is a mistake. Her composure abandons her for panic. She remembers her own fatal incident with the yōkai. And she remembers being saved by Takashi. But who would save Kaname should he become further embroiled in that foreign world? The only exorcist she knows is Natori Shuuichi and she only sees him on screens now. He never returned to their town after Takashi's death.

"Ask your dad to purify your room!" Tooru says urgently. "I can't believe you let this go on for months." She looks oddly guilty.

"Nothing has happened to me," Kaname says mildly. He eyes her in contemplation.

"Not _yet_." Tooru frowns as she visually inspects Tanuma for any injuries. It would be exactly like him to downplay his injuries. Kaname, Takashi, and Tooru had that in common, she recalls wistfully. They had never wanted to be a burden. Any problems they had they would have tried dealing with themselves. When they were together and one of them would act up, two of them would have been able to interfere. A lot more pressure than just her right now.

* * *

"How sad," Taki whispers with her characteristic optimism and vibrancy dimmed. She lingers in Natsume Takashi's room. Cherry blossom petals cover the floor. Curtains swing in a breeze. A familiar presence stirs her hair into motion. A chilly warmth presses briefly on her shoulder.

Touko sighs. "I wish that he could be free," she says, "but I'm selfish enough to also wish that he not leave again." The strength of her maternal love had blindsided her. Her grief had warped her ever so slightly.

Shame fills her up with a sickening warmth. It would be better if her son moved on, instead of lingering for so long. But she will take any scrap she can get. Who knew love could be so hurtful? They are all in pain.

* * *

Graduation approaches. Kaname sits at his desk. He stares blankly at the white wall.

"An office job," he laughs out. How mundane. He already has a job lined up. He's moving back home and planning to commute to work. It's been four years and the specter of that town deadens his limbs. Or maybe it's the chilly warmth that makes it home in the crook of his neck and seeps into his back. If he focuses hard enough, he can perceive a weight to presence pressed up against him. His faithful presence.

Tooru had confided in him a month earlier that something haunts Takashi's room at the Fujiwaras. Touko-san had slipped up and said how Takashi _is_ such a dutiful boy. "Is"—that verb tense haunts them.

* * *

Kaname moves home. High school friends and acquaintances who had had never left come out of the woodwork to welcome him. Tooru, of course, visits. She still lives in town in the house her grandfather had bequeathed to her. She's an artist. Her days of spellwork had left her with a certain finesse in drawing. She draws of the fantastical—of the yōkai.

On that first night home, he is not alone.

There are shadows twisting on the ceiling and skittering across the floor.

He does not fall asleep that first night.

* * *

Kaname walks deep into the woods alone. It is a mistake, he knows, but he cannot help but make it. The woods were Takashi's domain. Such a trouble magnet, Takashi was. That forest had often played the setting for Takashi's troubles.

The beauty of the woods is enhanced by the springtime bloom. The atmosphere is more livelier and lovelier than Kaname recalls. A sublime sense of awe overcomes him. He takes a moment to consume this visual feast.

Broad trees span across the firmament with leaves and branches that crisscross in a lattice. The sun filters through the leaves and leave the ground dappled with flickering light. A light breeze circulates fresh air and rustles trees. Mammals scurry in the underbrush as birds hop in branches. The song of spring soothes Kaname's heart.

But peace does not last long in this forest. The rustle of a bush is far too loud and heralds a larger shadow that leaps out at Kaname. It is powerful enough that Kaname can perceive its shape and hear its moaning. Garbled words are heard with all the comprehension of static interrupting the radio.

"…smell…Nat…sama…"

Retreat is not an option for Kaname because the earth comes alive. Roots fracture the ground and coil around Kaname with a flexibility contradicting the stalwart nature of trees. Suddenly, another form is outlined in the sunlight. It is shorter than the first yōkai.

The scent of cherry blossoms diffuses in the air, swift and heavy. The earth shakes as more roots crawl out. They encircle the first yōkai, who squirms in its grasp.

"Leave him alone!" the shorter yōkai shouts. The voice is so clear and powerful that even Kaname can hear it. Emotions can heighten the powers of a yōkai and bleeds off, thus heightening human perception.

The voice is… _familiar_. It scoops out the scar tissue in Kaname's chest and exposes an open wound that bleeds and throbs. A gasp, a choke stifles the breath out of him. The roots around his chest recede quickly, as if panicked.

Heavy footfalls distract Kaname from his pain. The vaguest outline of a beast yōkai on four limbs lumbers into view. When it speaks, Kaname can not comprehend its words. He only feels the reverberations in the earth that climb up his limbs. A light emanates from that beast and banishes the bound yōkai. Its presence feels as familiar as the short yōkai.

A muffled discussion does little to enlighten Kaname. It is then that he resolves to speak.

"Who are you?"

The short yōkai recalls all roots from Kaname. In answer, it holds out a hand. Golden light coalesces in the palm of his hand. A flower bud forms. It blooms sweetly pink with an unnaturally strong fragrance. It is a sight more real than the hazy outline of its form.

Formless, the short yōkai dissolves with a faint sigh. There is a pain in the small sound that resonates in Kaname's chest. The beast yōkai lingers a moment longer. It prowls nearer to Kaname. Its maw gapes open and releases a heavy gust at Kaname. He topples over and succumbs to a sudden onset of sleep.

* * *

Kaname wakes up on the edge of the forest. The sounds of nature do little to alleviate his loneliness. His mind is hazy with more than slumber. He has awoken from a dream he cannot recall. Gossamer strands of memory dissolve in the sunlight of the waking world.

There is a longing within Tanuma Kaname that transforms into pain.

It is alright.

Pain is familiar.

* * *

"You should go back to that flat cap of yours," Kaname murmurs. "And that trenchcoat."

Tooru flushes. She slaps at Kaname's shoulder. "Kaname," she hisses, "you swore to never bring that up again!"

Kaname chuckles in that quiet, sedate manner of his. He does not overwhelm. It is not in his nature. The bedrock beneath her feet, Tooru knows.

They stumble with the coordination of alcohol-stricken bodies. Their flushed faces meld together. It is an unexpected joining but it fills the emptiness in their chests. Their formative experiences in life overlapped such that only they could know each other down to the fundamental atoms that comprise their transient forms. Too spirit-touched to connect with the normal.

* * *

Resplendent in marital attire, Kaname and Tooru retire to bed. They leave a gap in between. It is the perfect size for a slim form to fill up. And it does fill up. Chilly warmth presses against their sides. Their hands blindly reach for that insubstantial form between them.

They know that presence so well that even in its invisibility, they connect so palpably. The warmth fluctuates with emotions. It is a language they have learned to interpret over the years. And now they notice uncertainty in those hands that clench and unclench in a motion desperate to cling and free. The light pressure of that grasp fluctuates.

"It's alright to be selfish," Tooru says. "We don't mind." She gazes up at the ceiling. Minute cracks establish a maze that her eyes follow. There is no escape—only dead ends.

"We're selfish too. We'll take anything we can get from you. We love you," Kaname declares. He stares at the ceiling and watches small shadows flutter. They are never alone in this house of theirs.

* * *

Laughter fills the forest and subsumes the birdsong with a sweeter melody. Kaname chases after a shadow as Tooru trails after. Further and further into the forest, the presence leads them.

"Even now, I still have longer legs than you!" Kaname calls out.

Tooru stops flush against Kaname's back when he abruptly halts. She understands the sudden pause. They are in a clearing so unlike any others that her mind jumps to the supernatural. She smiles.

There is no birdsong nor the rustle of animal movement in this clearing. It is a world cut off from reality. The grass is high with a lavender tint. Wildflowers bloom and release pungent fragrances. Despite the uncharacteristic strength, it is still a pleasant aroma in this clearing of theirs. Moreover, these flowers sway in an unseen wind. A delicate susurration reaches their ears. The wildflowers are speaking and they know not what they say, but it is enough to extract a high, clear laughter from the presence.

* * *

"Takashi! Don't draw on the walls," Tooru groans out. She runs a palm across her face. A giggle, soft and sweet, answers her.

She bends down and unfolds a tiny hand clutching a red marker. It's permanent, she notes.

"Sorry, mama," a high voice says. It's falsely penitent, she knows. Tooru is fairly sure that Takashi is baffled at the lack of standing ovations for his stick figure family art. The whole world is his canvas, he thinks. And his fathers do little to disabuse him of the notion. Too soft, she inwardly scoffs.

* * *

Young Takashi often wanders into the forest. He is corralled by an unseen presence. He never comes to harm in that forest. A chilly warmth leads him by the hand to an isolated clearing. He picks flowers; he chases butterflies. In this clearing, he creates a whole world that bends to his imagination.

He pretends a great deal of roles, and the world, oh, the world manifests these dreams.

* * *

When the Fujiwaras die, spring comes in late, and not only for their town, but for the whole country. It is a frightening display of power for those who know the truth. And they begin to wonder, what will happen when _they_ die? And when their children and their children die? It is then and only that they begin to comprehend why the joining of yōkai and humans is never an auspicious occasion. There is a divide between them that consists of the finalities of living.

It is fortunate then that when Kaname and Tooru die, they die together in the arms of their beloved. It is lucky then that they are spirit-touched. It is remarkable that their beloved has enough power and resources to transform them.

(Though all things come with a price.)

* * *

Kaname and Tooru cannot help but cry at finally seeing Takashi with all the clarity they recall of his human form. So long had they spent with only touch to know him fully. To look upon his divine beauty is the thrill of the sublime and the realization of all their desires.

"Takashi," Kaname breathes out. It is the first time they truly acknowledge their lover's identity. Takashi had always cringed at the beginning syllable of his name, as if it did not feel right now that he was no longer human. He was a secret stored split between their chests.

"Takashi," Tooru whispers hoarsely. She laughs wetly. Perhaps it is trite, but she feels complete. She had lived such a lovely, full life but a part of her had ached to be sundered so wholly from Takashi. Maybe it's unhealthy to be so caught up in other people, but this is the only love she knows. She is still her own person, separate from their union. The world now mourns the loss of an artist, but she had always mourned the loss of her faithful companion.

* * *

They are no gods and goddesses, like Natsume-sama, he of the springtime bloom. But there is power in their union that elevates them from common yōkai. Tooru is the winter melt that sets rivers bursting. Kaname is the trees that endure and peak in spring.

They watch over their friends and their child, and their child's children. They linger in this town of theirs. Natural disasters are soothed by the unseen. The seasons render the town picturesque. It is such a lovely town that its citizens are so hesitant to leave. Moreover, outsiders do not understand the fascination with the flowering shrine near the edge of the forest. They attribute it to rural superstitions.

Madara often grumbles at how crowded it is with these two new yōkai. But he is pleased by Takashi's happiness and often indulges Tooru's fierce cuddling. Even in his greater form, she takes great pleasure in manhandling him.

* * *

"I was named for my parents' _friend_ , Natsume Takashi," Tanuma Takashi explains to his children with a secret amusement. He remembers the presents left in his room with nary a footfall or a creak. He remembers chilly warmth combing through his hair and hand-shaped pressures on a crying face. He remembers flowers blooming and decaying in a second's span, all for his amusement. He remembers the faint lights he had seen upon his parents' deaths.

His children clamor at the source of their names in turn. He smiles, looking out the window. The forest is near and nature reclaims all in time. There are vines climbing up the house, thick and resilient to cutting.

Cherry blossoms drift lazily through the air outside in the garden. Trees are alternately heavy with leaves or flowers. In the distance, a brook burbles merrily. Their garden has always been the best in the town, only superseded by the old Fujiwara house.

Spring is in full bloom.

* * *

 **A/N:** **Actually posted this on AO3 on Nov. 24, so yeah, I'm more active on there. I also post fic previews and drabbles on my tumblr. Both my AO3 and tumblr are under tunnelOFdawn. I also take prompts on my tumblr.**

 **Fic inspired by** **ineffableboyfriends post on tumblr:**

 **um hello i want an angsty fic with a happy ending where natsume becomes a spirit and tanuma can only vaguely sense him around and at night natsume would lie next to tanuma and tanuma can just barely feel it and it's all tragic and stuff and as tanuma gets older natsume still sticks by him and tanuma can always feel his presence protecting him from harm and anyways tanuma becomes a spirit too after he dies of old age and it ends with them being able to be together forever**


	3. garden

Fujiwara Touko plants her love deep into the earth, where no man or animal can dig it up. From her hands, a dizzying array of seeds of all sizes and colors scatter. The earth greedily swallows all that which she offers. The earth knows greed but it, too, knows when to nourish and so these seeds crack open and sprout.

She reveres the garden.

Her achy knees dig into the dirt, as if in prayer. There are worms and they are squirming. She likes the persistence of worms and the way they accompany petrichor on rainy days. But today is not one of those rainy days where she curls up with Shigeru and hot cups of tea. Today, the sun shines bright and she is in the dirt.

Her hands worship the plants in her garden. She cuts a leaf, here and there, and frees plants from disease with careful application of certain sprays and natural remedies. Sometimes, she has to give up and uproot the sickly. When needed, she waters them with a watering can that her son had made. It is an ungainly thing with an ill-formed handle that digs at her palm but it is so very lovely. It is a verdant ceramic decorated with painted flowers that fade in the sunlight and in the vagaries of the weather.

Takashi had looked so tentative when presenting her with the watering can.

The sun on her bare neck warms her up and colors her red. Her tied-up hair resists the sway of the spring breeze. The scent of flowers wafts up and reminds her of all her hard toils coming to fruition. These are _her_ flowers. She smiles.

Wrinkles bracket the curve of her smile and crease the corners of her eyes. A face made for happiness, Shigeru would say in the time _before_. But now, her eyes betray her. A light has gone out.

When trees die, they hollow out with a picture-perfect facade. The heartwood dies and time moves on in an inexorable pace. This is Fujiwara Touko. She goes through the motions, listless and lost.

* * *

Touko witnesses grief diminish her husband to a paper cut-out. He is a dutiful man—he goes to work, he comes home, and he performs household chores. At night, he holds Touko close as if letting her go means he would lose her to the bedding and other worse possibilities. He does not let go all night.

There are nights when only the sound of their breathing fills the room. There are words to say but they never surface quite right. The only constant is the way Shigeru asks his nightly question. To whom, she has never ascertained. He asks, "Where is my son?"

And then Touko has to say, "Takashi is dead, Shigeru." She strokes his hair as he collapses on her chest. Every night, the glide of her hand through his hair becomes harder as his grooming habits worsen. There are days when she has to brush shaving cream across his face and take up a razor. She used to find his stubble charming and compliment him until he was a stumbling, flushed mess. Now, she yearns for him clean-shaven and bright-eyed.

"My son," Shigeru murmurs.

She makes soothing sounds but they cannot penetrate the fog of Shigeru's grief.

She stares up at the ceiling and the head on her chest suffocates her.

But they fall asleep, as they always do. Sometimes, they sleep too much and dream too much. Touko dreams of the days _before_. He had been so very happy. He had just graduated high school and had begun to work on realizing his dream of being a social worker. "I want to help those who need it," he had said and left unsaid, _in the way I had always needed it but had never gotten_.

On one night, she dreams of cherry blossoms—thousands of them blanketing her. "Touko-san," a sweet voice calls out. A breeze lifts flower petals off of her supine body. She knows this is a dream but when she wakes up, the dream isn't over.

"Oh, Takashi-kun," Touko croons. Her hand gropes around in the dark. She pats Takashi's indistinct cheek. "Let an old woman sleep," she says. "You wake me up at night, so sweet and quiet in those dreams that I've had. I wake up tired."

She falls back asleep.

Another night, another day for grief to wear her out.

* * *

When you pluck a flower from the earth under the sun, it has memories of the earth and the sun. It remembers life. For all that you accelerate its decay (because it is an acceleration—from the moment you live, you decay), it remembers all the vitality cultivated from careful hands, creatures in the dirt fixing nitrogen, sunshine warmth, cool rain, and nourishment residing in the earth.

Flowers are hungry, ravenous things. If you let them, they would suck the life out of you. It is in this nature that Natsume Takashi emulates and discovers power. In the spring when the flowers bloom, that is when he is at his most powerful.

He used to garden with Touko. They would weed the garden and Nyanko-sensei would make a nuisance of himself by wandering underfoot. Touko would giggle as Nyanko-sensei would plant himself firmly on the weeds Takashi was supposed to pull. When Takashi would get frustrated, Touko would gently lay her hands on his and say, "Nyankichi-kun just likes being around you." Then she would pet Nyanko-sensei and he would have a smug look on his fat face, purring up a storm.

After weeding, they would examine the rest of the plants and Takashi would listen avidly to Touko's direction. Touko was (well, still _is_ ) an experienced gardener with the callouses to prove it beneath her gloves. She would say to Takashi, "These flowers are alive. Treat them how you wish to be treated. Be kind, Takashi-kun." And then she would snip rotten leaves eaten clean through by insects.

This is the kindness Takashi knows.

The god of the springtime bloom is not nice but he is kind.

* * *

Touko takes Shigeru by the hand into the garden. He does not resist and his hand is clammy and limp in hers. Sunlight illuminates the world so brightly that Shigeru looks like he wants to flinch. He is wan in the sun, features drawn tight with exhaustion and neglect. A light breeze plays his flower stalks and their bright heads sway in the air. There are plants in the garden, yes—but there are so many of them growing out of their rows. There is nothing neat (or natural) about this garden.

Shigeru stares blankly at the bright plants.

"Shigeru," Touko says firmly.

Shigeru does not look at her.

Touko tightens her grip. "This is your son," she says.

"My son?" he murmurs.

"He is the garden," Touko says. She knows she is right; she cannot afford to not be.

Shigeru finally looks at Touko and there is something painfully pitying in the set of his mouth and eyes. "Touko," he says, "Takashi is dead."

If Touko had the face for scowling, she would. Now, of all times, Shigeru admits that Takashi is dead. Exasperated fondness wells up in her and it is a feeling she has missed. As it is, she lets out a sigh and says carefully, "Don't you remember Natsume Reiko?"

And Shigeru's face collapses as realization penetrates the fog of his grief. "He's been leaving...flowers in his room," he says. His voice cracks midway and his eyes desperately scan the garden. There are no cherry blossom trees, at least not one near enough to blow petals into Takashi's room.

(Fujiwara Touko and Fujiwara Shigeru keep Natsume Takashi's room pristine. Not a thing out of place. An unmade futon still lingers. A drawer not fully pushed in juts out. Pictures embedded into a cork board. Paper and writing utensils organized neatly on a desk.

When they come in to dust off, they sweep away cherry blossom petals every month. They watch curtains flutter in a breeze from an unopened window. Touko and Shigeru are vaguely aware that there is more to life than they perceive. Touko remembers crows; Shigeru remembers Natsume Reiko. It is a cold comfort when they cannot hug Takashi nor speak to him. If it is him that lingers, it is a painful realization. Their boy, so close, yet so far. How terribly sad he must be. Their boy, with golden eyes.)

And Fujiwara Shigeru finally looks at the garden and at his son in the springtime bloom.

* * *

Fujiwara Touko and Fujiwara Shigeru garden together. The sun shining down on them leaves them alternately red and tanned. They kneel down on the earth as they pull out weeds. There are not many weeds to pull out these days. When it rains, there are always two sets of footprints, feline and human. A little message in a bottle, Touko fancies. Yōkai do not have footprints in the same way humans do.

The Fujiwara garden flourishes beneath hands that are not theirs, Touko knows for certain. These flowers are not her flows but she does not mind the change in ownership. She remembers how shyly he had smiled when she had told him that he had a green thumb. Takashi had always wanted to create.

Her little god of the springtime bloom. She visits his shrine and leaves offerings with short prayers. "Be well and be happy," she prays. There are times when her visits are not solitary. That is when cherry blossoms twine up and around the shrine without any trees, just branches that are heavy with bloom rooted in the earth.

Those are the times when she wants to cry and those are the times she feels a warmth around her, an invisible hug. She whispers, "Takashi." But there is no verbal answer to be heard, only to be sensed. On bad days, her sweet boy sets the grass to rise and twine around her calves, as if to say that she is not unmoored. Faintly, she will hear the sound of a familiar purr and a familiar body hit her ankles.

Eventually, she has to leave. Takashi would not want her bound to him, in whatever form he now inhabits. She cannot live at his shrine nor in her garden. Fujiwara Touko must live for herself.

She starts inhabiting her own life. There are days when she stays at home and there are days when she is out and about town. She will meet up with friends and participate in town events. Every weekend, she sets out for the market and sells flowers and vegetables from her garden.

People always come back to buy from her. They say that her flowers smell the best and last the longest; they say that her vegetables taste the best and last the longest. They ask her what fertilizers she uses and she has no answer to give them that they will accept. She will say "Love" and they will laugh at a joke that she isn't telling.

And then one day, a friend comes to visit the Fujiwara household. She is from out of town and she has a worldly air to her that Touko had always yearned to replicate when they were schoolgirls. They used to dream of Tokyo as girls. Now, Touko does not care to match that worldliness—she quite enjoys her small town life and her family.

After they have tea inside, they move outside and back into the garden where they sit on aged wooden chairs. The weather is too nice to stay inside, they had decided. They have the usual conversations about work, home life, and hobbies. They even reminisce over their schoolgirl times and set up a date to visit their hometown as a nostalgic jaunt.

Then her friend says, "Your garden is blooming very well this year, Touko."

"Yes…yes, it is," Touko says. She cannot tell if it truly is pride that she feels but it makes her warm and makes her chest tight. Will the pain, she wonders, ever go away? It isn't as sharp and cutting as it used to be. It is a familiar hurt, like healed bones and achy joints on rainy days. She is growing into this pain and she wears it proudly. She does not regret loving.

And her friend looks at her sympathetically. "You used to garden with him, didn't you? I'm glad you've found your peace in this," she says gently.

Touko smiles. "I did find something," she says. "And so did Shigeru."

"Oh, you two garden together now?"

"Yes." _The three of us do._

* * *

Shigeru dies first. It isn't a tragedy. He is 80 years old when he breathes out his last breath. There is a smile on his face and Touko does not let go of his hand as she stares. She is an old woman now but she has never learned to let go.

It is always spring in this town. Sun, high and bright in the air, shines down. Birds chirp and skitter across the earth. They flap their wings in a flurry of feathers as human footsteps fill their ears.

Sweet Tanuma pries her hand off of her husband's limp hand. "Touko-san," he says gently, "you can let go now."

Touko lets him guide her but she says, "Sweet boy. I have never learned to let go and you know this too."

He smiles tentatively at her, cradling her hand in his. He has big hands; he has grown up. He has grown up in a way her son was never afforded but she does not begrudge him his life. She pats his hand. "Take care of Takashi-kun—you and Taki," she says.

"We will," Tanuma promises.

And Touko lets go.

A few days later, Tanuma Kaname and Taki Tooru find Fujiwara Touko in her bedroom. There is a smile on her face and cherry blossoms in her bed. A floral scent dominates the room and renders decay invisible.

At the end of all things, Natsume Takashi says, "Mother. Father." But there is no one left to answer. In the silence, tree roots climb up his legs. Flowers sneak across his form. Vines tie him down.

There is only Madara, who, despite the breadth and size of his greater form, cannot fill the void in Takashi's heart.

Takashi outlives humans and yōkai.

But he takes courage in that he is not alone.


End file.
